


Spooning For Science

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: Whumptober [5]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Fluff, Freezer Fic, Heavy on the Comfort not so much on the hurt, M/M, Numbness, Spooning, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-06 02:15:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21218888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: Nick and Greg, two men who are not accustomed to colder temperatures, find themselves stuck in a freezer. (whumptober prompts: numb, embrace)





	Spooning For Science

**Author's Note:**

> The Nick/Greg Freezer fic I've been wanting to write for ages! Finally!
> 
> Set sometime in season 4 after "Bad Words"

“The next time you ask me to assist you on a case, just smack me instead, it’d be less painful.”

Greg’s eyes shot daggers at Nick as he inched his fingers further beneath his armpits, taking shelter between two stacks of boxes underneath a shelf. Nick was pacing back and forth in an effort to keep his blood pumping, building up energy to try and bust down the door for the fifth time in the last hour.

“I told you we were gonna be in a freezer, G, besides, sorting through those matches was nothing--”

“Compared to this? Yeah, sure, w-whatever,” Greg scoffed in a nasally voice. He was most definitely going to have a cold after this.

A beat, Greg buried his head between his knees, his cheeks rubbing up against the harsh material of his jeans, though all he could feel was the beginnings of a numbed tingle. He could feel the icy air flow easily through his jacket, which had no insulation whatsoever.

“I can’t feel my face.”

“Here, I’m wearing a sweater, anyway--”

Nick peeled off his coat and threw it at the younger man. He started to bounce around the small freezer like a pinball, though it wasn’t helping to generate any body heat, only increase the perspiration on his skin. A stupid decision on his part, to go from collecting evidence in the boiler room to the freezer, but he had only intended on checking in on Greg for a minute before the door had locked behind him, shutting them both inside, with little to no cell reception. 

“Will you stop that? You’re gonna make yourself sick.”

“Ye-yeah, well, y-you’re w-welcome,” Nick chattered. He kept pacing until Greg dared to reach a hand out from underneath the coat, grabbed onto his pants leg, stopping him dead in his tracks. 

“I’m serious, Nick. You can get hypothermia.” 

“R-Rick’s gonna be back any minute with lunch, he’s buh-bound to come looking for us. We should be out of here in n-n-no time.”

“You said that ten minutes ago, exactly.”

“M-maybe he’s stuck...in traffic.”

“You said that five minutes ago, exactly. God, you’re vibrating, maybe you should take the coat back--”

“No! You keep it. You-you need it more than I do, California.”

“Speak for yourself, Texas.”

Nick began to laugh and sat down on the ground with his legs crossed, hands cupped into each other.

“What’s so funny?”

“Of all places that we’re gonna freeze to death…” he gulped down the rest of his laughter, cracked a smile across lips that seemed to pop out against the pale skin surrounding it. “We’re freezing in the middle of a dessert.”

“Well, technically you could if you were stranded outside in the middle of the night--”

“Yeah, yeah, well s-screw your technicalities, bro, it gets c-cold but not like, below freezing cold! Not like...this...” 

“If you want your coat back...” Greg began pointedly before Nick waved a hand at him, then murmured, “Thanks.”

Nick continued to stimulate his body, rubbing his hands together, his shoulders, his legs, curling the edges of his sleeves over his fists, but nothing was helping, his body just kept getting colder and colder and _ colder _. He wished now more than ever that he had worn his turtleneck to work that day. 

“Oh, God…” he muttered, unfurling one of his hands to examine. “Can’t f-feel my fingers.”

He looked at the extremities that were lost to numbness, shaking, cracks threatening to tease his skin apart.

“You know...we could...s-share it,” Greg offered, holding out one side before quickly wrapping it back around him. “Read it in an article once, that...it helps, you know…”

“Nah, G, tha’s alrigh’,” Nick whispered, his accent heavy. Greg almost wanted to smile at his friend’s sudden nervousness, as he watched his cheeks blossom to a deeper shade of red. 

“Nick. Please. C’mon.” 

Greg leaned over and pulled Nick into him, engulfing him in the thick fur lining of the coat. Nick landed awkwardly into Greg’s lap, kept squirming, tried to get comfortable before he fought his way out of Greg’s clumsy embrace. Though Greg was the taller of the two, Nick was the thicker. 

“Nuh-uh. If we’re gonna do this, _ I’m _big spoon.” 

Nick wrestled the jacket off of Greg with little resistance from the man. 

“A-and this, this ain’t...ain’t what you think...it-it is,” he stammered as he put the jacket on hastily, as Greg pushed the box besides him to give Nick space to sit next to him. “We’re only doing this cause we-we have to. No guarantee it’s gonna work, anyway, just an...experiment.”

“Spooning for science,” Greg chuckled with a smirk. 

Nick paused, giving his co-worker one of his “looks” with furrowed eyebrows and tight lips before he extended his reach as far as it could go, hugging Greg from behind with the coat stretched as far as it allowed. Once they settled, they both sighed in relief, the coldness had become a step closer to tolerable.

“What a pro,” Greg observed, the smirk expanding to a grin as he suddenly felt warmer, with Nick’s arms wrapped around him. “Teach me your ways, master.”

“Shut it, G, you’re ruining the moment.”

“Is that what this is, a ‘_moment?’” _

Nick didn’t respond, but rather, out of consideration, dug the arm that was pinned against the wall out of the jacket sleeve, rounded the jacket so that it covered their exposed side completely. 

“If you want it to be,” Nick muttered under the breath that spread over the back of Greg’s neck. “To...answer your question.”

“You know...out of all the people to be stuck in a freezer with...I’m glad it was you,” Greg breathed as he shut his eyes, trying to imagine him and Nick sitting on a warm, sunny beach in California, staring at the ocean instead of the frozen styrofoam box that was actually in front of him.

“Me too. Couldn’t imagine being stuck in here with Grissom,” Nick murmured back, envisioning a warm day on the ranch in Texas, sitting under the sun and spotting shapes in the clouds. 

“Or Cath. Or Sara. Oh, man could you imagine Brass in here?”

“He’d probably cuss up a storm that’d bust us outta here.”

“Yo, what about me? Really feeling the love here, guys.”

Too little too late, the boys were alerted to the presence of Warrick, standing with his phone and snapping a picture as he quickly removed the jacket from the pair, though the picture would depict Nick attempting to shield their bodies from the camera lens with a hand.

“You know, next time you two need a little privacy, I recommend going to a motel or somethin’ instead of locking yourself in the freezer,” Warrick offered his hand to Nick to help him up as Greg quickly scuttled out of the room. 

“Delete that photo,” Nick growled through gritted teeth as their hands interlocked and he pulled Warrick in within inches of his face.

“Aw, but you two lovebirds look so adorable,” Warrick chortled, though he held the phone up to Nick’s face and pressed the trash can button, before wrapping an arm around the man and guiding him out of the freezer. 

But not before sending the photo to Greg’s phone, first.


End file.
